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Blue Dog and the Blue Blood Flu
I feel something coming on in this country. Our healthcare reform effort is catching a bit of a cold. Actually it’s a virus. The Blue Dog and the Blue Blood flu. And this flu bug will kill far more people than the swine flu or the bird flu.
Here’s how we got sick…
Way back in the fall during the campaign season, we had great hope for an Obama administration that seemed to understand very clearly that healthcare is a human right. Then came the declarations of the new administration and the promises from Congress. We’ll get it done this year, they said. And because we all know thousands of American lives hang in the balance every month, we believed they meant to end the suffering and many of our leaders probably did intend to act.
But the bailout for Wall Street came first. Then more money flowed to the financial markets. And more money still. The work on healthcare reform was held back a bit as the economy’s failing and ailing was first in line for action.
Once the work began on healthcare, the Congress began its effort at what is for them breakneck speed. And President Obama staged carefully orchestrated events and press announcements to shore up that effort. It seemed as though the insurance industry’s investment of $1.4 million a day in lobby money would pay off handsomely in adoption of mandates for all of us to buy the private defective product that is for-profit health insurance, and the job of selling the American people on the notion that buying insurance equals extending healthcare to all seemed to be bumping along.
But then in came some of the numbers. It seems even with quite a little bit of lipstick on this pig, the costs are really high for bailing out the private health insurance industry and forcing all of us to buy the product combined with taxpayer-funded subsidies to enforce the mandates (to run the purchasing pools for the insurance industry, to punish and fine those who don’t comply and to pay part of the premiums for low-income folks).
Money was needed to protect the insurance companies’ interests and big Pharma and the American Medical Association. Big profit margins and big salaries and big dividends are at stake here. So how would Congress make that fly? And the President who promised no taxes on benefits?
First they said, “OK, maybe we’ll tax those benefits.” Then they said, “And maybe the rich should pay more taxes – like they did before.” And funding some sort of public option caused consternation. As details were released, it seemed every point was cause for alarm from yet another corner of the playing field.
Sniff, sniff. Americans were losing their jobs and their employer based benefits at the rate of 14,000 every single day. It’s hard to keep the costs of subsidizing the purchase of private insurance down when you gain thousands of potential subsidy-recipients a day. Estimates came in with big, big price tags. Not quite as big as our Wall Street bailout but big enough – more than a trillion-and-a-half.
Nerves began to fray. And the rich began weighing in with their elected officials. The rich, after all, are the voters who give money to campaigns. They are protected as primary stakeholders in the process.
Various coalitions of Congressional members began laying down their healthcare lines in the sand. And the only thing I can tell for sure is that the average American citizen is not being well represented by any of the power-wielding folks in these coalitions.
In the House of Representatives, the Blue Dog Coalition bills itself as protector of the fiscal well-being of the nation. They claim to be Democrats on social policy but when push comes to shove they sound as much like Democrats as Lou Dobbs sounds like a working class journalist. Not quite. Both make me crabby. And the Blue Dog Coalition is stalling out the progress on the healthcare reform bill in the House. They say they are waiting for compromise that will hold down costs.
Yet just a few weeks ago, at the invitation of Baron Hill of
Indiana, the Blue Dog Coalition heard a healthcare reform plan that would hold
down costs and provide access to healthcare to all. The Blue Dogs had a
physician-led briefing on single-payer healthcare. That’s right. It was
a closed-door, invitation only, we’ll-cancel-it-if-anyone-
As for the Blue Bloods in Congress, while not represented by a formally named coalition, the wealthy folks in this nation who object to being taxed to pay for healthcare reform began weighing in hot and heavy with their elected officials. Suddenly, 22 members of Congress – even some who have supported and even campaigned on single-payer reform – wrote a letter to leadership saying they could not support a reform bill that taxed wealthier interests more heavily. Even terrific single-payer supporters like Jared Polis of Colorado and Eric Massa of New York lodged their concerns about a tax on the wealthy. It was a very polite letter, but it made no mention of single-payer healthcare as a solution. An opportunity was missed, in my opinion, to at least make mention of what they know about the topic and its economic benefits to the nation – and to the health of businesses in this nation.
Blue Dogs and Blue Bloods. In a Congress with a Democratic majority and with a Democratic President (and son of a cancer victim who struggled with her insurance company), we just cannot seem to shake the bug.
I heard the President say on Wednesday night, “I want to cover everybody. Now, the truth is that, unless you have a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every single individual."
OK. Good. At least we’re acknowledging we’re not standing for equal rights for all where healthcare is concerned. Sad. Now the Blue Dogs and the Blue Bloods just need to be honest that we’re not about everyone paying his or her fair share either.
My husband carries Medicare and supplemental insurance. Premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses take more than 35 percent of his income. He seems to think that’s a bit high. But he says he’s heard that the rich are angry if they think they’d have to pay 9 percent of their incomes toward healthcare costs or 26 percentage points less than many of the poor, dumb working-class folks pay now. Would that be OK? He suspects not.
Because in a nation with the Blue Dog and Blue Blood flu, any plan that cuts into the wealth of those who fund the campaigns will be challenged and corrupted. Just like is being done right now. The deaths and the suffering of millions of people have been weighed against the needs of the wealthy and influential, and guess who is coming out on top?
The cure for this flu is the truth. And until we see clearly the real estimated costs of a true single-payer system, the gamesmanship will continue. If we truly care about the health of this nation, to be less than fully honest is risking the death of our long-held belief that every life matters, not just those with the means to influence the results.
Is there cause for hope? Oh, yes, definitely. In the House, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich scored the only true bipartisan win on a healthcare amendment to date. He offered an amendment to the House Tri-Committee bill that would allow states to pass and implement single-payer plans if they so choose. The amendment passed out of the Education and Labor Committee last week with a nearly equal number of Democratic and Republican votes. And in the Senate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also offered a single-payer amendment to the HELP Committee bill. The amendment failed but Sanders plans another run at the issue later on down the road when the Senate considers its full bill on the floor.
We can do this. We can get over this blue flu that clouds what is possible with the worries about what is probable if we pass an awful plan. I will hope that among the Blue Dogs and Blue Bloods we’ll see some courageous supermen and superwomen emerge who call for a little truth and a little justice. That would be the American way. So we’d better get busy and make sure we encourage that emergence.
- Posted in
33 Comments so far
Show AllUnfortunately despite your valient efforts and that of many others this President and this Congress have killed Health Care Reform with their dishonesty.
The bright side is that if it ends this year Single Payer could be presented next year by people not tainted by the garbage that is this years bill.
You deserve a medal Donna!
Don't forget that Obama has truckloads of his PR cultists, some of whom defend even the worst of the Blue Dog Democrats.
"The bright side is that if it ends this year Single Payer could be presented next year by people not tainted by the garbage that is this years bill."
The same people controlling Congress now will still control Congress next year technically speaking. We need to throw out both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress as some have suggested and replace them with true believers of single payer. I already feel like a dingbat for having voted for Obama and Congressman Mike Nye of VA last year. Nye and Sen Webb have been totally silent on single payer while Warner who I did not vote for after proudly accepting the endorsement of the US Chamber of Commerce expressed strong opposition to single payer.
maxpayne
As a fellow dingbat I certainly take your point. And I'm glad to cast votes against most. I am surprised at how quiet Webb has been.
I am simply hoping that next year some one would propose a simple Single Payer bill and if they did, people would line up behind it quickly I believe.
Henry8, I meant to say Glenn Nye, not Mike Nye who happens to be one of my coworkers. And this is what happens when our reps stay so silent ! It's easy for us to even forget their names and I feel even more stupid ! :(
If the health care crisis gets bad enough and I know that the rising unemployment will inevitably make it so, I guess we might have a better chance at it.
Webb did express his support of the public option plan but we all know what a load of bs that one is. Warner wants a "compromise" on the already lame "public option" plan. I knew I should have cast my vote for James Gillmore just to show my anger to Warner rather than leave that ballot blank even though I'd look like a hare-brain for voting Republican in anger.
I wondered about the Mike, but thought my memory was wrong.....lets hope thast someone with guts will stand up before the years up.
But I can assure you all the stupidity is contained within the beltway. Sorry, you don't have any of it.
In addition to what Henry8 said on the last paragraph, I would like to add a point about endorsements. When a special interest like CoC makes an endorsement, chances are they know exactly which one will best serve as their corporate puppet. The trick is to look at the candidate on the issues without associating him or her with the party he or she chose to belong to.
Max, both the Republican and Democratic parties are filled with mainly elitists and very few actual populists. When new pols who are unknown first come to office, most of them try to play it quietly until they feel entrenched and rest assured that their seats are safe. Like Henry8 said, you're not stupid. In fact, most of us 3rd party voters vote on the issues and are willing to forgive you for your votes as long as you're willing to think on the issues minus the politics. I did post that I forgave both you and Henry8 for your votes especially since Obama has turned out to be even worse than what even those of us who warned about Obama and voted 3rd party had feared. My parents, despite their staunch conservatism at least socially, are already deeply regretting their votes for Nixon, Raygun, Dubya, Obama, and the rest and talk less aggressively when I discuss issues with them minus the politics.
Dear Jennifer
"I did post that I forgave both you and Henry8 for your votes especially since Obama has turned out to be even worse than what even those of us who warned about Obama and voted 3rd party had feared."
And Max and I certainly appreciated it. We dingbats promise not to vote for him again! Take it to the bank!!!!
Oh Max and Henry, please stop calling yourselves dingbats ! At least you two learned and are willing to reform and see beyond the parties and for that both of you each deserve a nice hug of appreciation. :)
Plus, see my response in today's article view on San Francisco Dems where you posed the question about the voters.
Will look! But dingbats isn't too bad for Obama voters!!! Thanks Jennifer!
"Obama has turned out to be even worse than what even those of us who warned about Obama and voted 3rd party had feared"
Isn't he indeed, JB. I too must express suprise at how far and fast Obama has gone in the opposite direction many progressives here told me he would go...
paraphrasing:
"Obama is only pretending to betray us, he has a master play"
or
"it is only one hundred days, give Obama more time"
The fact is that Obama promised you guys nothing except "hope and change" whatever that means. Oh, I forgot to mention "yes we can". Is that a promise?
On healthcare, I feel for you guys. It looks like Lucy the Democrat has pulled the football away at the last moment once again. But like we told anyone who would listen, if you want a good healthcare system like the rest of the developed world has, vote for and support politicians that want it too, like the Greens.
My sources, the newpapers, tell me that if there is hope on the horizon, it may come in the form of the next California governor, who perhaps won't veto single payer legislation for the third time. Is this true? perhaps it will spread from state to state and you will get it that way?
I still come across lots of Obama apologists on the horizon. Maybe it's thinning down but I'll have to keep my fingers crossed all the way up to the next election.
"My sources, the newpapers, tell me that if there is hope on the horizon, it may come in the form of the next California governor, who perhaps won't veto single payer legislation for the third time. Is this true? perhaps it will spread from state to state and you will get it that way?"
Arnold the macho egotistical governer to give us national single payer health care or any part of it? Only if it resembled the current mandatorycare that now exists in MA and benefits the private insurers even more at the expense of further taxing and thrashing the taxpayers to pay for shoddy healthcare coverage. It will be nothing like single payer but if sneaking it through worked in MA, I can see other states doing the same if Obamacare which is similar to MA doesn't make it. Yes, there will be plenty more for us sensitive ones in the USA to weep about while our cornfed ignorants call this "victory" !
jlocke
Howdy my friend!
Isn't it astonishing how fast the star fell? Thinking he didn't have to listen? Didn't feel after pushing his spending bills through he would have any resistance to anything he wanted to do? Thinking all Americans were the fools his overeducated academic elite thinks we are? Arrogance unsurpassed by even Bush/Cheney? And now a slight show of racism by the President of the United States. Amazing!
Lucy may have taken the football and gone home.
California will lead the rest of the United States in nothing. No matter who the Gov. is.
Be Well!
Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold
Kip Sullivan
Pnhp dot org, Monday, July 20
..."When the “public option” campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge “Medicare-like” program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation’s largest health insurer, public or private. But today “public option” advocates sing the praises of tiny “public options” contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model."...
Full and unedited:
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-“public-option”-was-sold/
** The "public option" plans in congress today propose to enroll between 0 and 15 million people (that zero is not a mis-type). Bernie Madoff would be impressed at the scheme which is the current public option.
I a major problem with Donna Smith's piece.
Although she takes some passing shots at the "Blue Bloods," Ms. Smith lays the blame for Congress's health-care betrayals chiefly at the feet of the Blue Dog Democrats. But this view grossly distorts and underestimates the extent of the Democrats' treachery--it is not just the Blue Dogs, but also--and mainly--the so-called LIBERAL Democrats like Waxman, Rangel, and Kennedy who have conspired to shrink and undermine the public option to the point that it's now a shriveled, hamstrung, impotent joke in ALL the major bills floating around the House and the Senate: HR3200, the HELP bill, etc.: in each one the "public option barely registers a pulse.
In the words of Kip Sullivan of PNHP, "The “public option” proposed by the Senate HELP committee, again according to the Congressional Budget Office, is unlikely to insure anyone and would hence leave 33 to 34 million uninsured. The CBO said its estimate of 10 million for the House bill was highly uncertain, which is not surprising given how vaguely the House legislation describes the “public option.”
So why is Donna Smith adopting the MSM-HCAN narrative that it's those wicked Blue Dogs who are gumming up the works by opposing any hint of a public option? Clearly the reality is that this "public option" is a joke that is neither truly public nor an option for most of the tens of milliions who desperately need an alternative, and this farce is the handiwork of the MAINSTREAM YELLOW DOG DEMS, NOT THE BLUE DOGS.
HR3200 and the HELP bill do not merit the support of progressives. They are dead ends that do nothing to advance either of the chief goals of reform: cost control or substantially expanding coverage. Whether the Blue Dogs support these travesties or not is irrelevant--PROGRESSIVES have no business supporting these bills, even with a token, symbolic authorization for state single-payer systems; the states are mostly broke, so this is a nonstarter that simply makes it easier for half-hearted single payer types to swallow this bitter, toxic pill of a bill.
I'm surprised that Donna Smith has bought into this trite narrative of the People vs. the Evil Blue Dogs. As contemptible as the Blue Dogs are, they are NOT the main villains in this piece: it is the so-called liberal Democrats who have surved up this thin, nauseating gruel of a public option instead of embracing single payer.
Ms. Smith should be directing her main ire to these phony liberals, the chief architects of betrayal. The Blue Dogs are simply a side show.
I think the author is trying to start out with the most blatant of the traitors but you are right that even the supposedly liberal Democrats aren't doing their own part well enough to counter the Blue Dogs. John Conyers himself isn't doing much to push for support for his own HR676 bill that he wrote up. If Conyers wants to tell us why he's not pushing the very HR676 bill he wrote up that deserves to pass unmodified, he better have a hell of a good reason because I don't trust him at this point for allowing his party and the Republicans to stifle the bill.
Jennifer--
You're quite right about Conyers. Many people have been calling his office pushing him to have HR676 costed out by CBO . . . but so far only excuses and stalling.
As for the Smith piece--I think the point is that it is the Kennedys and Waxmans who are "the most blatant traitors" because they are the ones who have contrived this useless, enfeebled (non)public (non)option and are trying to pass it off as some kind of momentous reform. This is simply cynical consumer fraud.
It's the old good-cop/bad-cop routine. The Blue Dogs play the bad cop by opposing ANY hint of reform, while the Liberal Dems play the good cop by offering a semblance of reform that turns out to be a fraud. But both cops are protecting the HMOs and Big Pharma and digging their heels into ordinary Americans.
Both kinds of Dems are equally complicit in this gathering disaster of nonreform, so to foist on the Blue Dogs as the chief culprits is to miseducate people about what's really going on.
I agree 100% with you Jennifer.For Conyers to not push this bill now that his party has a majority in congress,plus how many so-called "progressives" are agianst single-payer and true health-care reform,is just sad to me.This is why we need either Greens,Socialists,Communists,or all 3 in Congress
I lost the edit option on my original reply to Donna Smith, so allow me to correct two glaring typos:
1. First line should read, "I have a major problem with Donna Smith's piece."
2. Third-to-last sentence: "surved" should be "served."
OOPS!
vanmungo,
I wish your original were as short as your correction so we could read it.
Try Googling the following:
Adult remedial reading program
Adult attention-deficit disorder
Try Googling the following:
Adult remedial reading program
Adult attention-deficit disorder
vanmungo: a thoughtful and important analysis. With Republicans now relegated to a minority in Congress, progressives seem to have need of a new boogy-person to account for their failure to pass progressive legislation; and Blue Dog Democrats seem to fit this bill. The BDDs and actually even some Republicans are actually to be commended for their critique of the mish-mash of a "reform" bill with its "mandates" that people can't afford and "subsidies" that governments cannot afford on grounds of its "fiscal irresponsibility." And I've come around to a point of view that even "progressive" measures like Kucinich's option for individual state single-payer systems (as well as the "public option") are "non starters" that are unlikely to get many if any people under single payer, but will give "cover" to single-payer advocates to vote for the mish-mash, since after all, it contains another liberal "option." Who said a "camel is a horse created by a committee?" The Big Committee known as Congress and the White House, whether by next month or the "end of the year," is going to give us a camel of a health care program with no chance in a race with the thoroughbred horse called Ecalating Health Care Costs.
Heard Kucinich's interview with Amy Goodman this week. I learned that Canada's sociaized health care started in one provence, and became a shining example of good policy which was soon adopted by the whole country. There are now 10 states in the US that have started investigating single payer... and who knows, maybe more to follow. It is at last a slight ray of hope.
There are ten fairly uniform Canadian provinces; there are fifty quite diverse American states, most of which are broke because of the recession/depression and all of which have to operate on a balanced budget. Snaking single-payer through the states is a nonstarter, unless you're content to wait about fifty years, during which time the country will sink into peonage to the HMOs, Big Pharma, and the Banks.
Here Kucinich is performing his usual role of making the unpalatable palatable; usually he does that by fostering illusions about the Democratic party with his hopeless presidential bids, only to endorse the neoliberal hack candidate at the end of the process, thereby nullifying all of his professed beliefs. In this case, he's supplying a futile, symbolic amendment to the rotten public-option bill HR3200 in hopes that progressives will swallow this toxic swill while thinking it tastes like nectar.
Kucinich is the Dems' last best hope for keeping progressives gulled and impotent--and the same old group falls for it time after time.
vanmungo: my eloquent friend, as I said in a post above I'm coming around reluctantly to a view that Kucinich is performing an enabling role in keeping some progressives in the Democratic Party's less-than-progressive corral. For one who has "fallen for him" a number of times, this is little less than a tragic situation in the full classical sense of an outcome in the exact opposite of the intentions of the tragic hero and his supporters.
That said, I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel on a state-by-state incremental development of single payer. The comparison of the U.S. and Canada is a bit off the spot, I think: BOTH for those who say Canada (and so many other countries) can do, why can't we?---and for those like yourself who assert the uniqueness of the American constitution with its rampant federalism, unlike the relative simplicity of the relation between Ottawa and the Canadian provinces. While the Canadian constitution MIGHT facilitate provincial initiative, it might as well facilitate strong central control that makes it even harder for policy innovations to begin in one or two of the provinces. It's an "empirical question" and not one which can be answered by simplistic comparisons of the relative ease of innovations in the two countries. At any rate, my bottom line on this would be "let's keep the door open" to the possibility of allowing for the creation of a few "good spots" of health care in the ghetto of our benighted health care system, with an expection that these spots will "spread" to the rest of the country. HOPE for CHANGE you know, a game that others than the Obama supporters can play.
Jerry--
Your comments are interesting. I agree with everything you say; I am just concerned that progressives will be lulled into complacency by the Kucinich amendment. Even if there are some glimmers of hope in a state-by-state approach, these exigent times, with millions losing employer-tied medical coverage along with their jobs, demands a more urgent, immediate approach to the problem: we are facing a health-care emergency in this country that requires a full-court press toward national single-payer, not a leisurely stroll toward incremental, state-by-state reform.
Hence the focus should be on HR676 and S703 (and the Weiner amendment) rather than the Kucinich amendment.
I think Donna Smith spreads her blame around pretty well. And Donna Smith can in no way be labeled as in the same league (or in league) with HCAN. Health Care Now for sure, one of the leaders in the single-payer movement, but not Health Care for America Now, a recently developed group who never stood behind the real reform needed. You have to become familiar with the body of Donna Smith's tireless advocacy for the cause, otherwise you might not criticize her by nitpicking.
Donna has had plenty of criticism for "phony liberals" in her work. And, it appears that the real work for single=payer will have to come about through the states, so the Kucinich amendment is important. Great work has been done in California, and to see another state doing great work at garnering by-partisan support look to Pennsylvania and the work of Chuck Pennacchio and HealthCare4AllPA.org. Once Obama's plan either fails to get passed (or passes in a form doomed to fail and needing life support) the work will be at the state level. If the Kucinich amendment stays in the bill, this will be no small accomplishment.
Though I don't know what efforts you have done in terms of working the single-payer agenda, I hope you are more pontificating behind a computer screen. I've met too many doughnut dunkers and always feel if one is not actually doing something, then one should be a bit hesitant to attack those who are.
Donna, thank you for your good work.
Sadly, however....
American citizens are not destined to be released from the slavery connection to healthcare thru our employers.
Keep us "productive" and cowering in fear.Its how we became the most "productive country" on earth.
Besides, America now feeds us the worst food in the world. Think the ones in power want to have to pay for the repairing of our bodies? Me thinks National healthcare in America is a contradiction in terms.
Mangy bitches
Spay that puppy.
The ruling elite's worst enemy is itself...
Too much incestual blue-blood in the gene pool for healthy reproduction...
It is called affluenzia... A terminal condition that affects the will to live...
In harmony with those around them... Ideologically Contageous... Warning signs... Reading books by Ayn rand... Thomas freidman....
Face it! The fix is in. There will be no significant healthcare reform for the average American. The majority of our "leaders" are either wealthy themselves or depend upon the wealthy to get re-elected. They also depend upon funding from Corporations to help them out in many and a sundry way.
When we try to reach our representatives by phone we get a clerk, when we email them, we get a standard email of what they have done or will try to do on any particular issue. If we contact a Rep. or Senator who is not "our" particular leader we get a response telling us that "due to the large volume of correspondence, I am unable to contact you unless you are a member of my district (state)."
The fix is in because the President on down know that the general population is either too busy to survive from day to day or that the people are not interested in the politics that swirls around them, rather, they are more concerned with whats on the boob-tube and who is the next American Idol.
The fix is in because the Corporations keep their workforce in line and busy. The Corporations and their rich CEO's know that the average person working for them is scared out of their wits with the prospect of loosing their jobs in this economic climate and will not say or do anything that might endanger their jobs and the safety of their families.
The fix is in because there are few if any alternatives for the average person to turn to for help. Its a dog eat dog world out here and the government, the church, the social fabric of our society is geared towards profits and more profits via the "free market". The general feeling among the leaders of this country is similar to the old statement towards women, "keep them barefoot and pregnant". This is translated to us as, "keep them unempowered, and isolated".
As long as "we" continue to play the blame game on who is or isn't doing their jobs to correctly represent us and strive to reach up to them (our leaders), the more we will be investing into a playbook that was set up to continue the "fix".
We must organize on a massive scale to fight the playbook, we need to relearn the lessons of Gandi, Martin Luther King and find ways to stall, block, ignore and send a message to the government, the corporations and each other that we are tired of the merry-go-round of not being heard and having the needs of a few be met, rather than the needs of the many being addressed. Basic, then is our need as progressives, independents, democrat's and Republicans to find not just commondreams but common ground, so that a movement is born too take back our power and our country, to turn the top into the bottom and the bottom into the top in our society.
The Bush years and the Clinton years and now, I'm afraid the Obama years, have and will continue to bury the average person into a serfdom with no escape....unless we fight back and use the internet as the common man and woman's rally point to spread ways and means to fight the abuse we all feel.
This month Medicare Part B kicked in for me and suddenly my already meagre Social Security check is taking a major hit (more than 10 percent). I do not think I can quit my job. If they let me, I will work until I die or become disabled, while in the latter case I become a "profit-center" for health "care."
If Pat Robertson the preacher who has called for bombing Washington because the Supreme Court ruled on a social issue in a way he didn't like, and nothing came of it, then so can I.
Whatever comes out of this Congress and this President will not solve the basic issues of health care. The only real solution is Single Payer, but that would require a HOST of educated idiots in the insurance industry trying to find a job. They could apply to the Army and see how many Afghan women and children they can kill.
Don't get sick!
Meanwhile, thanks, Donna, your contribution to the debate is actually monumental.
There is Hope, but not as we now know it. And, yeah, I can be criticized for this proposition, so bring it on....
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